Difficulty: Challenger (Level 2)

With an eager smile, Areeba Javed led a group of Hong Kong students on a tour of Fu Tai Estate. This is where she grew up.

In fluent Cantonese, the 18-year-old Pakistani-Hongkonger guided the group through her childhood haunts. These spots included The Salvation Army Centre, a children’s playground, a tuck shop and a mosque beneath a residential building.

“We used to frequent the centre for the fun activities ... And after class, 20 of us would play dodgeball at the parking area,” Areeba explained. The mosque was where she learned about her religion by studying the Koran, a sacred text for Muslims.

“We read and learned the Koran from a teacher, and he would punish us if we didn’t perform well,” she said.

As the pupils listened, many found they could relate to her stories.

This tour was part of The Salvation Army’s project, called “Hi! Strangers”. Launched in 2018, it promotes inclusiveness by having ethnic minority youth guide other Hongkongers through their neighbourhoods. The project has organised hundreds of tours led by 46 ethnic minority guides.

Bridge across differences

For Areeba, who is studying at the Hong Kong Design Institute, the tours encourage communication between people of different cultures. She remembers spending most of her youth as the only non-Chinese student in her school.

“Since I have a different skin colour, they saw me as weird,” the teen said. But things got better after she moved to a school with more non-Chinese students in Form Three: “The principal prepared a spare room decorated with Pakistani culture for [Muslim] students to pray. I hope more schools can follow [that].”

Cherry Kong Hau-in is a social worker who organises the “Hi! Strangers” project. She emphasised why Hong Kong needs to be more inclusive: “Some schools still separate the classes for non-Chinese [pupils] which limits their chances to communicate with each other.”

She hopes these tours can help build connections between different communities in Hong Kong.

“Don’t be afraid to ... say hi,” Kong stressed. “You will find something in common, and most importantly, respect one another.”

Use the crossword below to test your knowledge of the vocabulary words in the story.

Suggested answers

• Ethnic minorities might feel left out and find it harder to make friends. As Areeba said, her classmates used to think her skin colour was strange.

• The project looks to make Hong Kong more inclusive. It allows young Hongkongers who are from ethnic minority groups to give other locals a tour of their neighbourhoods.

• Being inclusive of people from different backgrounds will help them to feel accepted and to help us learn more about the world.